


The Party Season

by Britpacker



Category: The Thick of It (TV)
Genre: Christmas, F/M, Office Party
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-24
Updated: 2013-12-24
Packaged: 2018-01-05 22:18:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1099243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Britpacker/pseuds/Britpacker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“They shall not grow old, who photocopy their arses at the Christmas do.”  That first festive season in Opposition was memorable to Sam for more than the obvious reason.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Party Season

**Author's Note:**

> Watching the second episode of series 4 the other night put this into my head. Merry Christmas, one and all!

Psychedelic disco lights pulsed, casting a swirl of disorientating colour across the largest conference room, its furniture removed for one night only to serve as the Party’s private Celebration Central. Squeezing her way between writhing bodies (and being careful not to look too closely at which of her co-workers was making a twat of him/her self with whom) Sam Cassidy found herself yearning for the good old days, when this kind of embarrassing spectacle had been safely contained within the deceptively large spaces of Number 10, Downing Street.

Fewer people. A strict guest list. No outsiders with Smartphones. 

_No bloody karaoke._

A particularly high note screeched across the crowded room, causing the windows to rattle and anyone not sufficiently anaesthetised by free booze to shudder. Sam screwed up her eyes and peered through the murk, the three glasses of wine she had consumed insufficient to stop her heart hitting the floor at the spectacle before her.

The Right Honourable Nicola Murray M.P., Leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition, rocked from one arse cheek to the other on the photocopier’s delicate glass screen, cradling a microphone and squawking like a fifth-rate Mariah Carey tribute act through _All I Want For Christmas Is You._

Although to be fair, and Sam prided herself on being fair, that was at least four grades better than her “heavyweight politician with a snowball in Hell’s chance of becoming Prime Minister any time in the next three millennia” act had ever been.

Somebody – probably Helen, who had overridden all objections and appointed herself the Party’s cut-price Pippa Middleton (without the more notable physical attribute, as Ben Swain hadn’t hesitated to point out) had forgotten to unplug the machine. As a consequence it was softly glowing, ribbons of bright white light uncurling around the edges while it noiselessly produced an endless stream of images of the leader’s shapely and generous derriere.

Carefully Sam eased her way around the edge of the room, pushing herself back under a holly bough (her boss’s touch, his riposte to all that fucking mistletoe some of the twats had draped around the building) to avoid Geoff Holhurst, now shadowing Work and Pensions and setting an example to dirty old under-employed men everywhere by shuffling around with a sprig of that confounded plant dripping from his belt buckle. She must have been bloody mad, giving up her evening in front of the telly to battle through drenching rain, high winds and late-night December shopping crowds for this!

In the middle of the floor, sickly green under the strobing light, Oliver Reeder’s spindly frame stuck out like a hare in the headlights; and if that wasn’t Fat Pat’s niece whose face he was eating, her name wasn’t (as her mother reminded her on a regular basis) Samantha Jane Cassidy.

Well, if he was groping Easy Betty it meant he was leaving the more discerning women alone. And at least the two of them were blissfully oblivious to the mirror-cracking, ear-splitting horror that was Nicola deciding to go all Celine Dion.

Sam took another healthy swig of her drink. If one escape route was blocked off, there was always alcoholic oblivion to fall back on.

_Bollocks!_

Her invitation, like everyone else’s, had been issued to “Miss S Cassidy plus one.” She didn’t have to appear as a single girl; and with him on her arm, Sam’s arse would have been the safest in the building. It simply wasn’t possible.

Not yet. Maybe it never would be.

She scanned the room until her eyes rested on him: leaning against the wall behind the main double doors, apparently at ease and yet still, somehow, watchful. He’d opposed this free-for-all, backed Dan Miller’s proposal that the event be limited, controlled as it had been in the old days, but oh, no. Mrs Whiplash, the scourge of Whitehall – in her own eyes if nobody else’s – had adamantly refused to listen.

The Party had nothing to hide. They had nothing to fear from people – unvetted people, lovers, siblings (possibly one and the same in several cases), whatever, all of them connected via social media to half the bleeding planet – seeing the Shadow Cabinet and its employees at play. 

Nothing, Sam mused, except a creepy lecher with putative responsibility for every employee and pensioner in the country trying to persuade drunken females to kiss his repellent cock; a bunch of inebriated backbench no-marks nobody had ever heard of pissing in the corners; and the woman who would be Prime Minister rocking herself to a severe bout of seasickness and printing off a million images of her own back end while belting out all the corniest Christmas songs in human fucking history.

Solace stood on the opposite side of the room, tall, elegant and defiantly sober, still cradling the same glass of whisky - she knew for a fact – he’d accepted from Nicola two hours ago. Sam tensed her calf muscles until cramp was an imminent possibility, fighting off the urge to approach.

It wasn’t that anyone would think her going over to him unusual. Nobody turned a hair when they arrived at work together, or shared lunch watching the telly in his office. That he had been the first person to greet her on arrival, planting a light peck on her cheek and loudly advising her to _avoid the mistletoe because half the tossers are already fucking paralytic, pet_ hadn’t looked at all odd or out of place.

No. The problem, as Sam was just about herself enough to acknowledge, was that while he’d been on his guard, hers had dropped. 

Her head felt pleasantly stuffed with cotton wool. The colours, so garish before the last glass slid down, were beginning to tone down at the edges. There was a definite giggle working up at the back of her throat.

Sam Cassidy never giggled.

Except when Malcolm Tucker had her pinned to his bed and was tickling the backs of her knees. With his fingers or his tongue, it didn’t matter. She’d giggle then.

Warmth oozed through her lower belly and she needed another glug of something – anything – to soothe the scratch from a suddenly parched throat. God, she wanted to kiss him!

A golden flash from the disco lights caught him briefly, pooling in the hollows beneath his cheekbones and glistening in his thick grey hair. Figures jostled between them; some brave (or oblivious) soul even nudged against his shoulder, stumbling just that little too close on the way out for fresh air or somewhere secret to vomit. To Sam it seemed as if they were ghosts, dissolving before her eyes and leaving only him.

Stern. Austere. Magnificent.

And always, _always_ alert, she remembered when his head turned slightly and his eyes, grey and piercing as sharpened steel, connected across the room with hers.

His lips twitched. How she could identify it in her pleasantly befuddled state Sam wasn’t sure, but she saw it all the same. He was conscious of her scrutiny, and he was enjoying it. Fighting off a smile.

_Bastard!_

As deliberately as her mildly intoxicated condition would allow Sam dragged her gaze down his length from head to toe. Then back up again, lingering in a few of her favourite places. Crotch. Chest. Throat. Eyes.

She was reasonably sure he gulped then. He certainly needed a sip of that whisky.

Retaliation wasn’t slow in coming. He treated her to a sweeping look hot enough to burn the full-length midnight blue silk gown right off her body before pushing himself off the wall and setting off in an arrow-straight line through hordes of inebriated dark forms that seemed to melt in his wake. “Enjoying yourself?” he asked, low and gravelled, as he reached her side.

Oh, he sounded delicious! Sam wet her lips. Tried to eke another mouthful from her empty glass. “Not really. You?”

“Can’t you tell?” One steely brow twitched. Another appalling sound emanated from the karaoke queen and they flinched in unison. “Jesus Christ! Who needs nuclear submarines when we’ve got her? Next time Argentina decides to invade the fuckin’ Falklands we should just send our glorious fucking leader to screech the poor fuckers to death!”

Light was still spilling around the singer’s thighs; silently Sam offered a prayer of gratitude for whoever had last replenished the paper trays doing such a thorough job. “Look,” she hissed, getting up onto tiptoes to aim the words straight into his ear. “It’s on.”

“What’s - oh, _that’s_ on.” Like smoke uncurling from a cigarette amusement swirled from each syllable, the laughter he held back so much better than she could dancing in his eyes when he dipped his lofty head toward her. “Only Nicola Murray could manage to photocopy her own arse in front of the entire fucking Shadow Cabinet!”

“You did tell her we shouldn’t have the do here, didn’t you?”

He grimaced. “Yeah. So did Dan, Ben, Geoff, Fat Pat….even fuckin’ Ollie told her it was taking the whole _in tune with these austere times_ shit too far, but oh no. Helen said it’d play well with the voters and Helen must be right yeah? Jesus Christ! She’s not a fucking advisor; she’s the fucking parrot on the boss’s shoulder!”

It was, Sam considered, just as well her glass was mysteriously empty; she’d have been snorting booze back through her nose at that image. “Pretty Polly, pretty Polly!” she squawked quietly. Malcolm’s mouth twitched.

The song changed but the singer refused to relinquish her place, yanking the microphone back from the hand of some lurching nonentity attached to Dan Miller’s staff who had to be smarmed into compliance by the Deputy Leader himself. Absently sipping his drink Malcolm shifted closer to his neighbour, gratefully accepting the small solace to be gleaned from her softness against his side and the tang of her perfume tickling his nostrils. “Next break she takes we get out, yeah?” he breathed.

“Christ, yes!” She really couldn’t help it, not with him so close, the heat of his body seeping through her thin gown and the music of that accent filling her head. Sam shifted her weight, pressing against him.

She couldn’t hear his indrawn breath over the unholy racket from the music box but she could feel it: the tiniest shudder that started in him and rippled into her. Combined with the alcohol consumed, it went straight to her head. 

Sam found his hand between their flanks and squeezed it. Hard.

“Take me home, Malc,” she breathed, daring him to protest or pull away. He did neither.

Deep down he knew she was halfway to being properly pickled. She wouldn’t be so rash otherwise, gazing up at him with dewy eyes and those glossed, puckered lips that just begged to be kissed. He was painfully sober and more than a little aroused, the aftermath of her ocular strip search earlier still vibrating through his body. He’d done his fucking job. Stayed long enough to assess the potential fallout in the morning press.

Not that any of the incompetent twats seemed to be worrying about that for themselves. They’d line up outside his door on Monday sobbing, waiting for him to wave his magic wand and dissolve the unflattering headlines again. 

One of these days they’d have to do it without him. And then the Party would be well and truly fucked.

It couldn’t happen to a more deserving bunch!

Nicola’s wavering squawk hit another of those painful high notes and he yanked on Sam’s hand, tugging her along in his wake. “Nic’la! I’m gonna see this young woman off the premises before she does anything she’d regret in the morning, OK?”

“Aww, you’re not leaving so early, are you?” Like an oversized rag doll the Leader of the Opposition flopped forward, dropping the confounded bloody microphone into the folds of her skirt as she lunged and seized the startled Scot in a far too cloying hug. “’s a Christmas party, _nob’dy_ should go early! I haven’t even had m’ Christmas kiss yet!”

Before the meaning of her words could penetrate his usually lightning brain her mouth had suckered itself to his like a plunger onto a blocked sink. Sam could hear her enthusiastic slurping even over the festive din.

Malcolm’s fingers tightened on hers until the grip became painful, his thin frame held taut, petrified until his mouth was released with a wet pop and Nicola collapsed back against the upraised copier lid with a slack, silly smile splitting her face. “Happy Ch’istmas, Malcolm!” she slurred, fumbling between her thighs for the microphone and joining, shakily, in midway through the chorus of _I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day._

Utterly stunned, the Director of Communications stood before her and let his unfortunate eardrums be perforated by the appalling sound. Sam pulled on his hand. Called his name.

She was just considering slapping him across the chops – stranger things had happened that night, like the leader and her deputy roaring with laughter at the same joke before falling into each other’s arms and taking a single wobbling waltz lap around the room – when he shook himself, scrubbed a hand across his mouth like a small boy just kissed by a batty old great-aunty and stumbled back into the melee, dragging an unprotesting Sam in his wake. “I need a fucking drink!”

Even off duty and slightly tipsy she was the perfect PA, instantly diverting them toward the bar and placidly waiting while he knocked back a superb single malt hard and fast enough to burn the back of his throat. “Could be worse,” she said pacifically. “You’ve dodged Fat Pat so far.”

“Don’t go tempting fate, alright?” Their coats were out in the foyer, and only few writhing knots of drunken staffers stood between them and freedom. For the first time since she’d set foot in the building, Sam felt her heart lift until it was as light as her head.

They got jostled a bit, but she didn’t care. Not even Helen dared challenge their early departure – even when shit-faced, people still had a healthy dread of the toxic Tucker tongue. A few more moments. Just a dozen strides – well, a dozen for him, a skittering run alongside for her, Malcolm wasn’t in the mood to make allowances for her shorter legs and she didn’t blame him – and it would all be behind them.

He steered her down the steps and past the gaggle of photographers hoping to snap a senior member of the Shadow Cabinet going base over apex sometime before daybreak, hesitating to exchange a few words of cordial abuse with the boldest before turning her left onto the main street. “Malcolm, there are loads of cabs,” she hissed.

He didn’t slow down. “Yes and thirty fucking hacks with cameras watchin’ our every move.” In deference to her flimsy gown and carefully groomed brown hair he snapped his umbrella open against the steady drizzle, drawing her fully beneath it with an arm around the waist. Sam sighed with relief, the contact making her fuzzy head spin.

“Just as well you’re thinking,” she said, smiling mock-innocently up at him. “I bet they’d love to know you’re taking me to bed, wouldn’t they?”

Malcolm arched an eyebrow. “Is that what I’m doing?” he teased, risking a glance behind as they rounded the corner.

“Oh, I hope so!”

He twirled his large black umbrella down until it hung between the outside world and them like a shield, raindrops streaking down its flanks and pattering off their heads. Sam barely noticed.

He didn’t need to touch; with his gaze alone he could compel her to step back, away from the roadside and into the shelter of a shop doorway, the umbrella closing them off from the world and his mouth on hers making it dissolve altogether. Sam whimpered into his hungry kiss, wrapping her arms around him the way she’d been aching to all night. 

Apparently she hadn’t been suffering alone. “Jesus, I needed that!” he groaned, more than a little breathless when he finally pulled away. “Why did we turn up tonight, again?”

“Because it’s our job. Well,” she added, just giddy enough to be brutal. “Yours, anyway.”

“Babysitting the brain-dead? Yeah, that sounds right.” He ducked for another kiss, a tender brush of the lips that left her kneecaps intact but melted Sam’s susceptible heart. “You saw those smug fuckers with their Smartphones, did ye? There’ll be a million pictures of our leader looking a twat across Twitter by now.”

He raised the brolly and stepped back into the middle of the pavement, scanning the road ahead for a lift home. “Still, you never know your luck. People like their politicians to look human now and again; it could do wonders for her fuckin’ awful poll ratings! Oi, taxi! Let’s get home, love.”

*

The bed felt too big.

Before she could pry open her heavy eyes Sam knew she was alone, but that didn’t bother her. The bedroom door stood open and floating through it, together with the tantalising whiff of bacon and eggs, was the low, repetitive thrum of her lover’s voice running through a comforting litany of half-amused obscenity.

Careful not to move too fast she eased her woolly head from the pillow and kicked the bedclothes aside, picking up his last night’s shirt as the nearest item of moderately suitable clothing to hand. “Malc? You OK?”

“Fuckin’ brilliant, lass,” he hollered, and for once she thought he might not be being facetious. “From now on we ply that gormless gigglin’ excuse for a leader of ours with booze morning, noon and night, right? The _Mail’s_ gone all Mary Shitehouse about politicians settin’ a bad example but Twitter’s buzzing. People didn’t think the stuck-up fuckin’ sourpuss had it in her!”

“If anybody’d put up an audio clip they’d wish she fucking didn’t.”

Whatever sarcastic rejoinder he had planned flew out of Malcolm’s head at the sight of her, lush curves lovingly emphasized by the soft translucent flow of his shirt down to her thighs. “Er – probably, yeah,” he croaked, stopped dead in the living room door as she thudded inelegantly down the stairs. “You don’t have to get up yet; it’s only just gone seven…”

“Bed’s no fun on my own.” Enticing him back to share it with her probably wouldn’t be difficult but her stomach was starting to growl in response to the smells emanating from the kitchen: and anyway it had been so long since there’d been any positive comments anywhere about Nicola Murray that Sam’s curiosity was piqued. “Oh, and Malcolm?”

“Yeah?”

“Send her onto Question Time pissed if you must, but please – don’t let her take that _bloody_ karaoke!”


End file.
